Road Safety At Work Week

Published on: February 19, 2018

Your people are your greatest asset. Protect them when they drive for work.

Why is road safety important?

In B.C., motor vehicle crashes continue to be the leading cause of workplace deaths. On average, 21 workers a year are killed and another 1,280 are injured due to motor vehicle crashes while driving for work.* Injuries due to work-related crashes are more severe and result in longer time off work than any other type of workplace injury.

As an employer, it’s your responsibility to ensure the health and safety of your employees at all worksites — the office, the warehouse, the greenhouse, the manufacturing plant — and the vehicle they drive during the course of work they do for you. That obligation is the same whether your employees are driving a vehicle owned or leased by your company, or their own vehicle.

Take the Road Safety At Work Week Challenge

Road Safety At Work Week is an annual event focusing on the safety of workers who drive trucks, fleet vehicles, or their personal cars for business purposes. It's an opportunity for B.C. workplaces to increase their awareness of road safety practices and adopt them as part of their everyday practices. Each year, Road Safety At Work Week focuses on a different key aspect of driving and provides tools, resources, even online courses that employers, managers, and supervisors can use to build or improve safety programs.

This year’s Road Safety At Work Week, from March 5 to 9, focuses on the responsibilities organizations have for employees who drive their own vehicles for work. Your participation in Road Safety At Work Week shows that you make road safety a priority in your organization. Take the Road Safety At Work Week Challenge and help improve the safety of your workers who drive trucks, fleet vehicles or their personal cars during the course of their work.

There are many ways to participate, so take these three steps to join the Challenge:

Report back on what you did and be eligible to win a prize to share with your workplace.

Along the way, explore the many free resources and online courses to develop and support a road safety program at your workplace.

A vehicle is a workplace

No matter who owns the vehicles that employees use for work, employers have the same legal obligations for employee safety. Fleet van or personal vehicle, if it is used for work, it’s a workplace and that means employers are responsible for employee safety.

This means employers must:

Confirm that employee-owned vehicles are fit for purpose, regularly inspected and properly maintained.

Provide employees with instruction, training, and supervision necessary to ensure their safety when they’re on the road.

Employees also have responsibilities when they drive their own vehicles for work. They must:

Follow company road safety policies and procedures.

Know and obey traffic laws.

To further minimize risks associated with driving for work, it’s important to have a travel policy or checklist to manage the trips. The journey management process video provides trip-planning tips for employers and supervisors to help keep workers safe and is available in multiple languages.

To learn more, or for tools, resources, and even online courses to build or improve your road safety programs visit roadsafetyatwork.ca. Follow them on Twitter @RoadSafeAtWork and use #RSAWWeek to join the conversation.